Cat Tracks
Spring Shadows Elementary Wildcats Staff Newsletter
December 4-8, 2017
#Limitless Learning
Our Vision
Our Mission
Core Beliefs
- Each student has unique intellectual, emotional, social, and physical qualities.
- We embrace a child’s individual values, interests, and personalities.
- Parents are confident in their child’s social and intellectual educational growth.
- Educators lead their craft by preparing learners in our fast changing world
Principal's Message
Dear Wildcats,
This week we came back with a huge blast in our learner's journey. Many of you received invaluable feedback and coaching for Preview, View, and Review; Academic Conversations (increase turn and talk), Guided Reading, and were observed by Opportunity Culture. Others of you worked heavily on data analysis and next steps. Finally, many of us met to discuss our current state of the school (CIT), and Panorama Survey (PBIS cadre), along with leadership next steps (T.L. Meeting).
(*Whew!* Are we tired yet?!?)
So, because we work so hard, it's time to wind down a little bit and use these next 2 weeks as reflection time and to wrap up the 2017 year. Use your big focus for the next two weeks and ensuring the students have a great learning journey daily.
At our last team leader meeting, I had announced we would do status of the class this week. For personalization purposes we will be having those the first week of January during your PLCs. Stay tuned for further direction on what to bring for purposeful dialogue on our students.
This week's announcements are here for you.
- PLC: Objective for next 2 weeks on Mon. & Thurs.: Teachers will discuss, plan, and implement learning for Nov/Dec Guaranteed 3 TEKS chosen by grade levels as measured by Mastery Connect platform. Teachers will reflect for the spring semester big ideas/goals.
- Observations: Leadership team will be coaching with PBIS goals and giving feedback to teachers on Domain 3 of T-TESS for the next 2 weeks.
- Hour of Code: Push yourself and your kids to have fun learning to code! I double dare you to code along with your students!
- Candy Cane Grams: 4th grade thanks you as so far the Candy Cane Grams have been a huge success. The team has decided to extend the Candy Cane Gram sale. Money should be turned in daily to the front office and candy grams will be delivered the following day. The last day for Candy Cane Gram sales will be this Thursday 12/7/2017.
- Early Dismissal: Everyone will enjoy each other's company on Wednesday immediately after dismissal. We will have a potato bar, bring your cookies for the cookie exchange (100% participation), and finally the rest of the time will be used to have personalization purposes from your team leaders.
Again, thank you for all you do! You make me so proud!
Wildcat Love,
Rachel Martinez
Deadlines/Priorities
- Grades and report card comments. It almost time to complete your report card for mid year. Start working on those mid year comments to parents.
- No DRA testing in December or MAP testing until January. Facilitate maximum learning opportunity for all students.
- Double dare coding tweets- If you catch yourself or your kids coding- tweet it @sse_wildcats!
Calendar
- 4th & 5th Grade Swap Planning Time
- Hour of Code
- 10:45-11:30 WAIS to visit with 5th Grade
- 1:00-2:00 ILT PLC
- 2:30 Dismissal
- 4:00-5:00 PTA Meeting
Tuesday, December 5, 2017: DAY 6: 3rd Grade Extended Planning (Follow Day 3)
- Hour of Code
- Cindy G. Out
- 7:30-10:45 Mobile Dairy Classroom
- 8:00-10:00 4th Grade Writing PSA
- 1:30-2:15 Cornerstone visit with 5th Grade
- Dismissal 2:30
Wednesday, December 6, 2017: DAY 1: 4th Grade Extended Planning (Follow Day 6)
- Hour of Code
- Cindy G. Out
- Spiral Day
- Picnic lunch with your students on this day, so we can decorate the cafeteria.
- Dismissal @ 12:30
- Faculty PLC 1:00-4:00
Thursday, December 7, 2017: DAY 2: 5th Grade Extended Planning (Follow Day 1)
- Hour of Code
- 9:00-9:30 2nd Grade Performance
- 1:15-1:45 2nd Grade Performance
- Dismissal @ 2:30
- 3:00-4:00 Accommodations Training Make-Up (PLC Room)
- 5:00-7:00 Family Fun Night: Pizza Dinner, Santa Pictures, 2nd Grade Performance, Children's Museum Around the World, and Parents can pick up the Golden Ticket for Christmas in a Box. Plus a show case of SSE coding.
- Hour of Code
- 10:00-11:00 1st Grade Holiday Party (Library)
- Dismissal @ 2:30
A Look Ahead: No Extended Planning or After school this week.
- Monday- Holiday Sweater/Shirt Day!
- Tuesday- Rock your Holiday Socks for Jingle Bell Jog! (Staff & Students may wear green or red shirts.)
- Wednesday- Show your spirit with Holiday Headgear Day!
- Thursday- Best Holiday Dress! (Pictures with Santa through the Day) Classroom Holiday Parties last hour of instruction.
- Friday- Wear your cozy Holiday PJs to school Day! Sing Along Day & Early Dismissal.
Staff Shout-Outs
- Thank you 3rd and 5th grade for opening yourself up for feedback and interviews for Opportunity Culture. Thank you for your innovative spirits to continue to provide quality learning experiences for our scholars.
- Shout-Out to K-2nd OWDL for their learning spirit to improve their craft! You rocked it with Preview, View, and Review.
- Snaps for 3rd and 5th Reading teams for being flexible in their schedule to attain Guided Reading Training.
- Thank you Humaira, Jericohl, Noemi, Vivian, Ashley, Janet, Romina, Ilsa, Susan, Demetra, Yezenia, Cindy G. & Cindy R. for supporting PTA Bingo Night & Candy Gram Sales! It was a nice success!
- Many thanks to Bea, Olga, Rachel B., and Adriana for being extremely flexible covering classes, supporting with customer service, and making sure all student events are successful!
- Way to go PBIS cadre and CIT for your unending hustle & passion to improve our school!
I know there are many unsung heroes out there that I did not get to mention. If you see someone out there going above and beyond and want me to recognize them on cat tracks, please send me an email.
PBIS and Project Class
Project Class: Please send me the names of your Project Class Shining Stars. I will need two names by Friday, 12/8.
PBIS: With the holidays around the corner, be mindful that some of our students may struggle during this time because they may not have money for gifts, loved ones are away or may have recently passed, and so many other reasons. Focus the next two weeks on building relationships and a positive classroom culture. This may help those that find this time of year difficult.
Keep up the good work!
Library Notes
This week is the Hour of Code - please try to have your students code! At 3pm on Friday, I had 24 computers on Hour of code in the lab. Hopefully they will work on Monday.
We will have a Show Case of Coding during Family night on Thursday - with computers & ipads set up to code plus Dash & Dot, Ozobots and Beebots. Ms Perez is arranging for a drawing for those who try a couple coding station. She has baskets of items that include a little robot for the drawing.
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Congrats to our SSE Readers - for 179,788 minutes logged in!!
Our volunteer (Mary) did not get to pick up the minutes as planned last week - so they are not included. Plus if you have November calendars you want Mary to log in your minutes bring them to the library! I am confident will be at 200,000 minutes with all of those. : ) I would love to see 300,000 by the end of December!
Ranking by Grade and Class!
2nd grade -49,220 (14,052 Urrutia,12,872 Alvarez, 11,277 Gutierrez, 9,080 Hudman, , 1,939 Gomez)
4th grade - 35,954 (21,240 Campana,10,653 Mendoza, 1,691 Lopez-Dav, 1500 Shankar, 870 Tarver)
3rd grade - 29,526 (13,892 Klauer, 10,135 Pachuca, 2,729 Luna, 3,445 Menefee, 325 Lee)
Kinder - 24,715 (17,640 Almaguer, 6,340 Moreno, 735 Campos)
5th Grade- 22,308 (7,114 Hernandez ,4,866 Keyim, 4.040 Perez, 3816 Richardson, 3670 Perez, , 2472 Lopez.)
1st Grader -20,487 (12,483 Barron, 3,667 Garcia, 2,177 Espejo, 2,160 Salina )
Send all Readers with 1000 plus minutes to the library to get picture for the 1000 minute Rockets!
I sent you an attachment of your class minutes if your minutes changed this week. It will show each children's minutes. Please let me know if there is problem.
Overdues -Lists will be sent out every Friday at 8am.
Check out this week... then My Goal - ALL library books returned by Dec 12th. Then on December 12 and 13, all classes will be scheduled to come in 15 minute to pick out a book that was donated that they can take over break without the worry of losing it. It will be theirs!
Thanks for your support!
Ann
Spring Shadows Elementary
Email: rachel.martinez@springbranchisd.com
Website: https://cms.springbranchisd.com/sse2/
Location: 9725 Kempwood Drive, Houston, TX, United States
Phone: (713) 251-7100
Twitter: @twitter_rachelmartinez4